Disagreement with translation professor

Vera Schoen wrote:

I don’t speak Spanish and English isn’t a working pair of mine, so I won’t venture an opinion on the actual translations (yours and your professor’s). But when I read your post I think of what happened to you as a perfect opportunity to practice something that will inevitably happen to you during your work as a translator: that a client, who does not master the language in question, requires you to make changes to a good translation you delivered. I don’t believe there is a single translator who has not been exposed to this. In such a case it’s important that you can politely and respectfully stand on your ground and defend / explain your choices. So, see it as a great opportunity to practice something you will have to master as a working translator anyway.

Gitte Hovedskov wrote:


If her job is to help you render Spanish texts into localised English, I think she is a goldmine for you. How many teachers take the time to comment on practically every sentence in a translation with such detail? Remember that SHE is a native Spanish speaker, not you. So, when she comments on so many of your sentences, it must be because she feels that your translations do not quite hit the sentiment of the Spanish sentences.

Christine Andersen wrote:

A client once complained about a colleague of mine who had called a crystal chandelier immaculate. The client thought this was close to blasphemy, and only the Virgin Mary could be immaculate…
even though we found several examples of other things, we had to find another word to describe the chandelier. The client went for 'brilliant', which was a safe choice, but somehow did not quite have the same sparkle!

You will find that happens again and again…

Anton Konashenok wrote:

Regarding the specific examples you provided, I think the most important positive lesson contained in your professor's critique is that being too literal is usually bad. Indeed, inexperienced translators tend to stay too close to the source much more often than depart too far from it. On the other hand, the proposed "journey of cultural diversity" looks like a tacky cliché to me - but again, this is only my personal opinion.

Robert Rietvelt wrote:


I don't advocate literal translations. I am a supporter of translating more freely, but please stick to the content and don't come up with your own fabrications, or become a writer.

By the way, "you can't use 'babble' because it is associated with boiling' What does your professor think about 'ringing'? My first association is a telephone.

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Michael Wetzel wrote:

Like you, I don't like "brooks babble": As you said, it's hackneyed and, as your teacher said (albeit by way of the bizarre detour of her claim that babbling suggests boiling), it is not really associated with peace and tranquility.

I also think adding a subject ("the pilgrims" or "no one") does improve the second half of the sentence. Maybe with "to make themselves understood."

(And just because I can't help myself: I can't speak Spanish and don't have the context, but is that right that it's the pilgrims and not the stones and water that don't need words to make themselves understood?)

Michael Wetzel wrote:


If you want to talk with her about this, it only makes sense if you can keep the conversation from being about her competence in English. If there are some places where you think she has good points or would genuinely like her to elaborate, start the conversation there and see where it takes you. If you are supposed to revise your work, then ask her what you should do to support your choices where you disagree with someone's suggestions (because you know that is a skill you will need to have for the future). And hope she doesn't see this discussion.

artspan wrote:



Yes, I was thinking this would end up being a challenge with clients someday as well. I just hope it's not something that happens every single time. I think I have politely and respectfully stood my ground and defended/explained my choices to my teacher, but her response was to basically repeat her original points. For instance, I explained that in English we do use "to lose yourself" as well as "to find yourself" in a spiritual sense, and even gave as an example the very famous song "Amazing Grace" ("I once was lost, but now I'm found.") She read my comments, but subsequently just repeated in another comment that in English we don't say "to lose yourself" or "to find yourself" in a spiritual context. Either she doesn't believe me, or she just can't lose face. It went the same with my other arguments. She has politely disregarded/ignored my points.

artspan wrote:

Her overall intent and strategy about being more creative and free and trying to maintain the poetic tone, I understand. That's not the issue. You told me I should communicate with her instead of sulking on here. I am communicating quite a lot with her and I'm not sure why you'd assume I'm not.

Kay Denney wrote:

Your example from Amazing Grace is fine and should have done the trick. Are you sure she read that comment?

Kay Denney wrote:
I have twice had clients who ask loads of questions. Once, it was a company that had had a bad experience with incompetent translators. After a few months of asking questions, they learned to trust me, and the company became one of our best clients. The other company read the answers to their questions and wrote back to the PM saying that I obviously knew what I was talking about and that from then on they wanted me to do all their translations because I also had a much richer vocabulary than previous translators working on their files. One of the best compliments I've ever had about my work, and right at a time when the PM was acting like I must be incompetent since they were asking so many questions about my work.

So it's definitely worth it to learn how to counter stupid criticism.

Vera Schoen wrote:

I don’t want to hijack this thread, but since you asked:

I always start by thanking the client fort his/her input. That relaxes them and shows I’m open for discussions. Then I explain my choices by providing examples to prove my point. I always use “genuine” sources (i.e. the Swedish National Encyclopaedia or, like your example, a well-known text). I try to be as pedagogical as possible to make sure the client gets my point. And to be honest, that almost always does the trick, and the client appreciates that I took the time to explain. Then there are those who don’t want to change their view. That, thankfully, happens very seldom (twice in my 15 years long career). In those cases, I let the client know, that I’m perfectly willing to make the change, but that I advise strongly against it. If that doesn’t work, I make the changes but add a statement (in bold text), that I only did the change on the clients expressed request.

And don’t worry, this doesn’t happen all the time, but often enough to require a strategy. 😊

Gitte Hovedskov wrote:

I agree and apologise, my mistake in assuming something about you that I could not know.